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that Spain has gone its own way first and lookedfor approval afterwards. It's also not quite clearwhether the new measures are consistent with theGovernment's stability program announced at theend of April, which sees a deficit of 6.3 percent ofgross domestic product this year (revised upwardsrecently from 4.5 percent), 5.5 percent in 2014,4.1 percent in 2015, and of 2.7 percent in 2016.Those numbers are in line with the Commission'sdeficit targets for Spain, although only because theEU, bowing to the inevitable, announced this weekthat Spain (and France) would be given an extratwo years to reach their fiscal targets. It's difficultto see how even these latest targets can be reachedwithout significant savings; let's hope that PrimeMinister Rajoy takes a leaf out of Britain's book.Challenging as it is, the only way of saving Europeis to cut bloated state sectors, and cut them hard.We can't give the EU Commission any browniepoints for abandoning the financial transactions taxin its current form – given the barrage of oppositionfrom politicians, the financial sector in general,several unincluded member states, and even fromsome of the prospective members of the "variablegeometry" eleven, it had no choice. In fact we'llgive it a black mark for leaking the information viaReuters rather than announcing it. Too shameful,presumably, after it had staked so much on the tax.Heads would roll, if the EU was a properly transparentpolitical space, but it isn't, and there will bea long process of face-saving before the tired oldanimal is finally led to the knacker's yard. In thiscolumn we have been strongly against the tax fromthe very beginning. Officially, the Commission isstill pretending that the tax is merely "under discussion,"but I prefer to believe the leaks!Australia had a very successful week in its campaignto drive multinational businesses out of the country.Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury said thatreforms to increase fiscal transparency form "partof the Government's broader agenda to crack downon multinationals." No, OK, he didn't say that, althoughhe just as well might have said it. What heactually said was " . . . . to crack down on multinationalprofit shifting and tax avoidance." Yawn. Earlierin the week he had delivered a stinging diatribeagainst the habits of multinationals , calling them"massive money shuffles." He screeches that companiesobtain "a competitive advantage" – how awful!Isn't that exactly what they're supposed to do?And naturally he complains that "families" are leftto foot the bill. Well, Mr. Bradbury, what about thejobs those families live from, and the income taxesand GST etc etc your Government receives courtesyof those jobs? He's only 37, by the way, andwas a tax lawyer with a major commercial law firmfor some years before being elected to parliament in2007. He was twice mayor of Penrith. Impressive.I may be wrong (often am!) but I am suspicious ofthe Dutch Government's plan to replace corporateapprenticeship tax breaks with "targeted subsidies,"because it seems to take decisions out of the handsof companies and puts power to dish out moneyin the hands of officials. It's not that I would suspectDutch officials of venality – I am sure that99